Eek! I'm far more literate than the above comment suggests. The G1 Google app I was describing verbally informs blind G1 users about the color of items in front of them. It's completely experimental and totally buggy right now, but the fact that it exists at all amazes me.

This is the promise and untapped potential of the open-source Android programming language. Anyone can stake a claim, come up with a good programming idea and upload the finished product to the G1 marketplace.

Interesting. What makes the G1 (Google) phone worth more than a boat anchor are the unique apps - some goofy, others absolutely breathtaking, which have no particular value as Web-only applications. Such as, a program that identifies and visually describes the color of items. Right now, the program is iffy at best, but the potential for future applications is stunning.

Even though I swore at first my G1 was an expensive boat anchor, I'm really starting to appreciate the potential, led by user-created and submitted apps (the G1 programming language is open-source), something you can't do with the IPAD or the IPHONE. I don't need or want a closed-in wall.

The only reason I still have a landline is because I get a fantastic deal with my DSL, $22 a month, from an independent provider. This requires me to keep a dialtone with AT&T (formerly Pac Hell, formerly GTE) that costs about $15 a month with all the stupid taxes included.

You have to stand firm and refuse the sales pitch for enhanced products, but it is possible to have only a dialtone, meaning you have local calls and nothing else is available. There's no long distance and no intra-lata, I think they call it, meaning phone calls made outside of the local free calling area.

This keeps the kids from accidentally calling a friend, thinking the call is local, until the phone bill comes (AT&T charges an outrageous 25 cents a MINUTE for these landline calls, basically from one city to the next. When I found out how much the calls cost (before anyone made a call), I asked the AT&T customer service rep 'How is it possible that your company can charge that much, when I have a $10 throwaway prepaid cell phone from Virgin Mobile, kept as a backup for emergencies, and that costs only .10 cents a minute?' She didn't have an answer.

Other people I know keep dialtone-only service for their security alarms and satellite TV service, which requires a dumb landline phone connection to make daily updates to the set-top box. A friend of mine just moved into a new house and she didn't bother giving anyone her new phone number, because her mobile phone is the way people have always called her.

It's funny the way we're all using this new technology, but we kept her cat and dog for two weeks while she was moving. Having photos of their pets text-messaged to them every day made the move less stressful on her family. This was the grand technology the old Bells were promising us for decades. (Remember the AT&T commercials with Tom Selleck, promising 'One day you will.') The old broads never delivered on any of those promises, but the mobile phone companies sure did. The landline phone stayed dumb, while the mobile phones just kept getting smarter, faster and easier to use. The landline providers have made themselves irrelevant by not innovating, changing and offering reasonable prices for their services.

Simply 'NOT BUYING' is another way to get attention. I'll argue it's more effective because it has the same bottom line impact but it doesn't arm these organizations with the courts as a club. It FORCES them to evolve.

I agree completely, and although I realize I live in a fantasy world, if everyone would quit d/l bootleg music and movies and would also quit buying legitimate music and movie products, the MPAA and the RIAA whinies would have no further ammunition with which to beat on that old drum, and they would no longer be able to demand special exemptions and protections from the government.

One thing I believe Hollywood wheelers and dealers fail to understand is the power of tech-smart consumers. Maybe 1 in 10 of us understand this stuff, but we're the ones who friends, family and co-workers turn to every time they have a tech-related question. We influence what other people buy. I've been able to explain to several people who asked about the Blu-Ray compatibility problem and the FCC ruling that gave media companies the right to fuck with the settings on our DVRs. With every bonehead move intended to protect their cash cow, the MPAA and the RIAA are driving away more and more of their legitimate customers.

Do you by chance have a time machine for sale that will take me back to the glory days of 1998? Because I have absolutely no interest in buying knockoff Nike tennis shoes, clothes, handbags, sunglasses, jewelry, (you forgot the comma), candle (you don't need to capitalize Candle), (oops, you forgot another comma)craft (craft what?) or daily necessities. (You mean adult diapers? Condoms? Do you have any in size XL? I need a megapack, preferably a minimum of 1000.

It's a deal for me if everything is included in a prepaid price, including tax and tip, and like Blake said, don't keep me waiting if I've paid in advance for a table at 7:30.

However, the upscale dining in my family has been cut back to a bare minimum, and I don't know if it will ever come back. You know what I really want someone to invent? A f--ing time machine so I can go back to 1998 and stay there, before the dot-com bust and 9/11, when I ate wherever I wanted and never even looked at the bill.

Not only that, but based on the commercials I've seen, it will also: cause you to... perform fellatio on Betty White....
You are one sick f--k. What kind of perv wants to munch on ancient dried-out tree bark? If this is one of the side effects of smoking the reefer, you can count me out of the game, mister. Next, you're going to tell us smoking crystal meth gives a man the courage to go down on Bea Arthur.

Are you a shill or did you actually read the story? Look at the comment I've lived with this for years already
and you'll understand why these kinds of policies negatively affect those of us who haven't stolen anything. The MPAA and the RIAA have declared open season on the paying consumer, and they're too stupid to realize this.

The MPAA goons can go f--k themselves and the dying horse they rode in on. I'm one of those suckers you bozos call a paying customer, and you can stick a fork in me, because I'm done. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a potential criminal with all of this crappy DRM, locked-up DVRs and the whining about how the movie studios can't make a dime anymore because of all the thieves who are downloading movies without paying for them. Now you want to f--k with my DVR? Well, f--k you.

Most public libraries have DVD movies you can check out like a book and bring it back when you're done. Flea markets, swap meets, thrift stores and garage sales are great places to buy used DVDs at a fraction of the retail price. The only way we're going to beat these a-s at the MPAA and the RIAA is with financial starvation. I say it's time to starve the beast.

Are the people who file these lawsuits high on crack? Thank goodness it sounds as if there was a tech-savvy judge, or at least one who wasn't a total idiot, as he made a rational and well-explained decision.

I was a diehard Yahoo! fan, all the way back to the dark ages of 1994, first for their search engine, and later, for the free email. In the old days, Yahoo actually coughed up useful results.

Later, the results got so spammy and crap-filled, I wouldn't dare click on any link in a Yahoo! targeted search. The ads also became heavy with sound, video, animation and flash, which bogged down my high-speed internet connection. Everyone else I knew was still using dial-up internet, and they dumped Yahoo as soon as Google became better known.

At one point, Yahoo was truly my internet link for everything. My first online auctions were through Yahoo - Ebay was around in those days but Yahoo did it better. They also had a free online photo storage service, which wasn't all that impressive in the days when digital cameras still cost thousands of dollars. I was buying books and other stuff via Yahoo shopping years before I bothered to check out Amazon. The ads on Yahoo became spammier, and the links in internet searches turned into useless junk. Amazon started their own online auction service (they don't have this service today), which was better than Yahoo's, and of course, Amazon became the king of online shopping, the first place I went for books and music.

And then I met Google. The first smart thing Google did - which seemed almost counterintuitive at the time - was stepping away from those flashing, video and sound-based target ads. The text-based click ads seemed so quaint, but when Google started, most people didn't have high-speed internet connections, and this was a brilliant move backwards that actually worked. Yahoo started charging for things Google was offering for free, including POP access (where you can read your email via Outlook or on a mobile device). On my very first smart phone I was able to easily d/l my Google email, back in 2002.

The branding of the G1 was another brilliant move on Google's part. If Yahoo had been on the forefront of this kind of package deal, maybe they might still be king of the internet world.

Today the only thing I use Yahoo for is to check my two email accounts I've had since 1994 - just to delete the spam. I do this once a month, just for old times sake.

I'm just now getting Netflix movies that I put in my queue a year and a half ago. What the hell do I care about another 28 days?

Same here. I also can't imagine getting my pants wet thinking about seeing Avatar on my laptop TV screen. If I want to see a blockbuster (no pun intended) I'll go to the movies and see the film as the creator intended - on a huge screen with surround-sound and greasy popcorn drenched in butter.